The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is a well-established knowledge product of IUCN; it is widely recognized as the most comprehensive, objective global approach for evaluating the conservation status of fungi, plant and animal species. To maintain and further improve the status of the IUCN Red List, there needs to be cutting-edge, efficient and performance enhancing tools that underpin the proper functioning of such a widely used and valued knowledge product.

The Web Application Developer should be keen and passionate about building state of the art applications, and the nature of the job. The successful candidate will work closely with a network of conservation scientists, other web and geospatial experts, and will be responsible for maintaining and building on the current high-profile systems behind the IUCN Red List.

A good first degree in Computer Science or equivalent is needed, together with good experience of developing web-based applications using multiple technologies like Ruby on Rails, Python, Java, HTML, Javascript, and CSS. Experience with SQL databases like PostgreSQL is essential.

Whilst experience in the above technologies is important, applicants with demonstrable experience in similar types of frameworks and languages and who are motivated to learn and expand their skills will also be considered. The position involves the handling of critical data, hence good management and organization skills are also required.

A detailed description of this role and the main skills we are looking for is available further down, but essentially, we are looking for a developer who would be a keen self-motivated technology enthusiast, who is not daunted by trying out new technologies and be able to think outside the box, with an eye for optimisation, performance, security and understand the complexities of data management. The position involves the handling of critical data, hence good management and organization skills are also required. The developer would be expected to work in a team that manages the full-stack of critical web applications.

Specifically, the applicant will be expected to deliver on tasks such as:
• Supporting the ongoing development of the Species Information Service, which is the main system managing the Red List assessment process
• Assisting in the design and development of new functionality for the Red List websites, and GIS related activities.
• Contribute to design of architecture of applications
• Implementation of a robust set of services and APIs to power web applications
• Building reusable code and libraries
• Implementation of secure systems and data protection
• Translation of UI/UX wireframes to visual web elements.
• Integration of front-end and back-end aspects of the web application.
• Integrate testing as part of development process.
• Learning new technologies and staying on top of trends in web development
• Strong focus on quality of outputs.
• Supporting the maintenance of web applications and databases where required.
• Assisting the line manager in developing better approaches and platforms for improving the Red List processes.
• Assisting the Line Manager in translation user needs to system requirements.